For the first time in recent memory, uncertainty hit those who live, work and play in the nation’s capital with the same intensity and instability that the middle of the country has been experiencing since the beginning of this century.

No one walking the halls of the US Capitol, conducting business on K Street, visiting as a tourist or even driving a cab understood exactly what it will mean for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump to win the presidency next week.

“Is the Reagan era over officially? Are we in the new progressive era, a legacy of Obama, or is there something new started with our pitch toward populism?” wondered Bob Kanard, a retired physician from Cheyenne, Wyo., who was traveling across the country on Amtrak’s Capitol Express.

The answer won’t come until next Wednesday, when we can look beyond clashing personalities, divisive policy debates, seemingly daily October surprises for both candidates and end-of-the-world scaremongering to answer the question.

“To understand American political history, it is always best to think of it like following a cyclical pattern, or a series of eras,” said Curt Nichols, political scientist at Baylor University and a leading scholarly expert in what is called in academic circles “regime theory.”

So, for example, the Democrat-dominated New Deal Era (1932-1980) is widely considered one turn of the cycle; Franklin D. Roosevelt oversaw the beginning and Jimmy Carter presided over its collapse. After this, the cycle started over with Ronald Reagan.

To understand what it would mean for either Clinton or Trump to win, one needs to determine “what time it is” within the cycle. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, but here are the possibilities.

If Clinton becomes president, this most likely means one thing: the Republican era that Reagan started is already over and America is eight years into a new “Age of Obama” era of Democratic Party governance.

“Never in the history of the United States has the minority/opposition party ever won three presidential elections in a row. It just doesn’t happen,” explained Nichols.

If Democrats win three in a row, it’s because they are the new dominant party and the country doesn’t want to abandon the newly established progressive status quo.

In fact, as Nichols catalogs, every single new era of governance in American history has started with the newly dominant party winning the presidency three (or more) times in a row.

This is how the Federalist Era (1788-1800), the Jefferson Era (1800-1828), the Age of Jackson (1828-1860), the post-Civil War Republican Era (1860-1896), the “System of 1896” (1896-1932), New Deal Era and Age of Reagan all started.

A Trump victory, meanwhile, would likely indicate one of two things.

First, and most likely, it suggests that America isn’t yet in a progressive era, but that the Reagan cycle is not quite over. It also means Obama didn’t start a new age of politics.

By way of historical comparison, this would mean that Trump is the Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover of his time. That is, the guy unlucky enough to be sitting in the Oval Office when the era’s house of cards comes tumbling down.

Nichols stresses that it isn’t Trump causing the end of the cycle — it’s the end of the cycle creating the populist conditions for the rise of Trump.

If this is the case, the somewhat transformative task of creating a progressive era of governance is still to come. It would naturally fall to whichever Democratic president follows Trump.

The other possibility for a Trump presidency, the one his supporters like to focus on, is rare. Indeed, according to Nichols, it has only happened once.

A Trump victory could inaugurate a new, populist era of Republican-dominated politics.

In terms of the cycle, it would suggest President Obama had the opportunity to start a progressive era of governance — but failed.

In this reading of history, the Age of Reagan collapsed in George W. Bush’s second term. However, Obama and a filibuster-proof Democratic Congress couldn’t capitalize.

The chance to create a new era then devolved to the most unlikely of quarters: Donald J. Trump.

“American politics has cycled through eras before, and it probably will continue to do so in the future,” said Nichols, adding that if you don’t like who’s on top today, remember — the wheel is built to turn.